o-day."

My heart leaped like a conqueror's.

Her skin was as fresh as the roses, looking marvelous to touch. The
shock of imminent discovery went through me. For how can a man consider
a woman forever as a picture? A picture she was, in the short-waisted
gown of the Empire, of that white stuff Napoleon praised because it was
manufactured in France. It showed the line of her throat, being parted
half way down the bosom by a ruff which encircled her neck and stood
high behind it. The transparent sleeves clung to her arms, and the
slight outline of her figure looked long in its close casing.

The gown tail curled around her slippered foot damp from the plunge in
the garden. She gave it a little kick, and rippled again suddenly
throughout her length.

Then her face went grave, like a child's when it is surprised in
wickedness.

"But our fathers and mothers would have us forget their suffering in the
festival of coming home, wouldn't they, Lazarre?"

"Surely, Eagle."

"Then why are you looking at me with reproach?"

"I'm not."

"Perhaps you don't like my dress?"

I told her it was the first time I had ever noticed anything she wore,
and I liked it.

"I used to wear my mother's clothes. Ernestine and I made them over. But
this is new; for the new day, and the new life here."

"And the day," I reminded her, "is the first of September."

She laughed, and opened her left hand, showing me two squat keys so
small that both had lain concealed under two of her finger tips.

"I am going to give you a key, sire."

"Will it unlock a woman's mind?"

"It will open a padlocked book. Last night I found a little blank-leaved
book, with wooden covers. It was fastened by a padlock, and these keys
were tied to it. You may have one key: I will keep the other."

"The key to a padlocked book with nothing in it."

Her eyes tantalized me.

"I am going to put something in it. Sophie Saint-Michel said I had a
gift for putting down my thoughts. If the gift appeared to Sophie when I
was a child, it must grow in me by use. Every day I shall put some of my
life into the book. And when I die I will bequeath it to you!"

"Take back the key, madame. I have no desire to look into your coffin."

She extended her hand.

"Then our good and kind friend Count de Chaumont shall have it."

"He shall not!"

I held to her hand and kept my key.

She slipped away from me. The laughter of the child yet rose through the
dignity of the wo